It's true.  Where else can you drive 10 minutes and see this?

T and I drove up to the lookout point over Oahe Dam tonight.  It's lovely up there, isn't it?



















We enjoyed a bit of nature time overlooking the grand ole' Missouri.



















From looking at these pics, you'd think that things are still pretty brown up here.  Not so.  These hills are brown year-round.  I guess that's the prairie for ya.

I will miss this place.  Not just the people, but the beauty of the open prairie.  Thank you Lord, for creating beauty in the middle of nowhere.

I totally stole this from House of Turquoise, who stole it from her courtesty of HGTV.  God bless the internet.

We're currently trying to decide how to decorate our new house and where to put all our furniture, what we need to buy, what to paint, etc., etc.  I had to sit through 2.5 hrs of Talent Show auditions today and in between auditions I dug through House of Turquoise's archives of rooms with turquoise, black, and white.  I love them all.  I think I have found my house inspiration.  This one's pretty sweet too:

Yes, that really is yellow houndstooth linoleum.  We're gutting the kitchen.

There are 3 legal bedrooms, 1 bath, and something that T is calling his "gun room."  (It's a hole in the wall really, which will house his guns.)

Today I told my students that I was leaving.  Boy oh boy, there were tears.  Lots and lots of tears.  Somehow, I managed to hold it all together, but I think that if I would have lost it they ALL would have lost it.  It was really hard.  I had so many nice comments from kids afterwards and lots and LOTS of hugs.  They all even gathered around me for a ginormous group hug.  How sweet, eh?  I love it.  I love them.  After lunch I came back to my room with stuff like this written on the board:

"The Danger Zone is under construction"
"We were but lead and  you turned us into gold"
"We Love You"

and a poem that is just entirely too long to post here.  Man, we sure are praying that this is the right decision.  I'm gonna miss them like mad.

Today I decided that it would be nice to post about things that I love.
I love my job.  Yesterday we hosted our region's Large Group Music Contest.  We had about 12 different schools come to perform for a panel of judges, receive comments, and a rating.  All 3 of my choirs performed and they all received a "I" rating!  (That's the highest, with a V being the lowest.  I was soooooo proud of them!  We were aiming for a I+, but very few ensembles even received I's, let alone putting a + after it.  Phew.  I'm glad that's over, though.  There was a lot of stress leading up to the big event!  I'll post videos as soon as they're done uploading to YouTube.  Our internet is apparently really slow.

I love my kitty.















Nori and I spent all morning together, just chillin' on the couch.  This afternoon I opened up the patio door to let her experience the wonders of outdoor smells.  She's a bit of a fraidy cat, so she sat under the table for awhile first, but then her curiosity trumped her fear, I guess, because she's been sitting at the door for quite some time now.















Oh, Nori!  My mom bought her a fuschia cat bed for Easter that she has yet to use, but we're trying to convince her to use it.

I love my house.  This afternoon I baked banana bread, did laundry, washed my rugs, did dishes, and tidied up our little nest.  I just love living here.  It's tiny, yes, and it's not ours, I know, but I still love it.  Maybe because it's the first place T and I have had together.  Maybe it's the open kitchen.  Maybe it's the deck with the spring breeze wafting in, or maybe it's the overwhelming scent of fresh banana bread right now.  I don't know.  All I know is that this place feels like home.  Sigh. 


















EDIT:  Here are those videos I promised.  The weird clicky sound is my auto-focus.  Apparently it's really loud.






I'm so proud of them!!!!!

For $12, it's not a bad deal!  I told him to grab it and we could sell it on our garage sale for more than $12.

T and I are currently in Sioux Falls for the weekend.  Hooray for Easter!  We enjoyed the most moving of Good Friday services with my family last night.  I was in tears by the end.  It was the last song that pushed me over.  A good family friend sang a duet with our music director.  She used to sing duets just like this with her husband who just recently passed away.  It was a first time she sang a duet with anyone else besides him and all I could think about was how strong she was to keep praising the Lord in these difficult circumstances.  By the end it was all I could do to stay in my seat and not go comfort her, because by the end, she was streaming tears too.  Praise the Lord we'll see her husband in heaven someday!

I'm sick of people not being able to leave comments on here.  Stupid template.  Grrrr.

Will you do me a favor?  If you try to leave a comment and are unable to, will you send me an e-mail?  Just a note to say, "hey, this new template doesn't work either" would suffice!  emsensei{at}gmail{dot}com.  Julia from Hooked On Houses stopped by and couldn't leave a comment.  (I about threw up when I saw she e-mailed me instead!)  I'm such a dork...to be e-mailed by Julia!  My hero!

Okay, it's voting time.  I went thrifting today and brought home some treasures and found two awesome pieces that need rescuing:

an awesome dresser: